People are already talking about you online. How about putting out a welcome mat?

We knew people loved the Film Society, a five-decade old institution within Lincoln Center. We interacted with them daily while building the institution a large and vibrant social media following on Facebook and Twitter.

This year’s New York Film Festival opened with the David Fincher-Aaron Sorkin film The Social Network. It seemed to go against the spirit of the event to offer festival-goers the same-old web experience: flat, convoluted and tough to navigate.

Even though the Film Society’s overall website is antiquated and hand-coded, we wanted a visual, flexible, social website that would stimulate the visibility of the festival and also be easy the staff to manage. Organization exigencies demanded a site that could be built quickly and cheaply.

Where did we turn? WordPress, of course.

The site we made for the 2010 New York Film Festival:

  • Supported virality and shareability with social tools built into every page. That helped the Film Society’s fan base quickly surpass the 10,000 fan mark on Twitter, with the tweets flying fast and furious around a red hot opening night film.
  • Used a number of recommendation, categorization and custom page layouts to stimulate the exploration of content. Three quarters of a million pages during the festival’s most active one month period told us that all of those access points to content paid off handsomely.
  • And most importantly, by featuring a Facebook login to comment, along with Facebook and Twitter feeds integrated right into the pages, we were able to meet the audience halfway with a website that extend the social activities they engage in on a daily basis.  The website was thus organically social, and connected seamlessly with a public event in real time.

We are big believers in creating not just socially-capable websites, but websites that feel integrated to larger social experiences. All the tools are out there to build social websites (even on a small budget) it just takes a little creative thinking to produce a website that helps users seamlessly move between a live event and an online representation of that event.

Quick tips on building a social event

The best thing you can do:

Recognize that what “social networking” is all about is capturing public affinity and creating a space online for your fans to express that affinity. Because of that, a truly socially networked event relies on a synergy of web pages that are fully socially integrated (with comments, Facebook login, Twitter, etc), and a collaborative team capable of building a bridge between public events and discussion in the online space.

Look for intersection points between your event in real life and opportunities in the social networking space:

  • Develop incentives or prizes for “checking in” with location-based services like Foursquare.
  • Design your content plans around substantial “discussion points” that can give your event more dimension and create conversation online.
The worst thing you can do:

Simply present a link or a Facebook or Twitter icon, directing people off your site and into an environment where the conversation is much more lively. While this was sufficient a few years ago, nowadays there are so many resources that will help you integrate social tools into the structure of your pages. Use them to cultivate lively conversation!

The best place to start:

Integrate Facebook Open Graph with simple steps like adding a “like” box or activity feed–allow people to comment on or like your pages without leaving your site. Install a live Twitter feed. Even small touches like these will start to make people feel more connected to your event.

Check out more resources like this: